Finding Her Grace
by plainjanedee
Summary: A single moment of clarity can change everything. After taking some time to review her relationships, she comes to realize that the perfect boy for her has always been her very best friend. Written and entered anonymously for TR's Twitterpated in the Springtime Contest - 3rd Place Tie


Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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I own nothing Twilight. If I did, everything from the end of New Moon forward would be drastically different.

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She had never been a graceful girl. In fact, it wasn't much of a stretch to call her a klutz. As a child, she didn't really think about the fact that she always had bruised shins and scraped knees. She was a kid, and she played outside with her friends and they all had bruised shins and scraped knees at some point. So, her coordination (or lack thereof) didn't really bother her when she was little. It just didn't seem to matter.

But as she grew up, it definitely became a prevalent issue. It was something she hated about herself as a teenager. She hated it when she tripped over invisible cracks and _especially_ when it would happen in the middle of the cafeteria at school, or as she was walking out of a classroom with students lined up in front of and behind her. She blushed easily, and in that situation she wasn't just clumsy, she was also a lobster. And she hated that a lot, too.

As luck would have it, her very first boyfriend and his family were exceptionally graceful. They gave her the humiliating nickname 'danger magnet', which did nothing for her already weak self-esteem. She spent so many months feeling completely out of her element every time she was with them. She was sure that their perfect coordination was actually making her own even worse than it usually was. She never felt more uncoordinated than when she was with him.

It wasn't until much later, long after he and his perfect family had moved away and left her behind, feeling broken and unworthy, that she finally was able to see things clearly. She had not realized that while she was with that perfect boy, she had been cut off from her friends that had known her all her life, and who loved her just exactly as she was. She spent very little time with her family, who also loved her and didn't make her feel bad about her poor coordination, but instead let her know that just made it clear she wasn't adopted, as it was actually a family trait and laughed about their own comedy of physical errors. Her dad in particular, was fond of saying he had been technically challenged as a teenager, but pointed out that it does seem to get better with age. That always made her smile, and she would hug him and kiss his cheek, thanking him.

Her friends (who missed her greatly while she was otherwise occupied with the perfect boy) knew that she was able to trip over air and had, since they were children, walked with her and around her so as to catch her when she feel. They didn't plan it or think about it consciously, they just did it, as they always had. She was an integral part of their lives, as they had all grown up together on the reservation (even though she didn't actually live on the reservation, nearly all her time was spent there with them) and they looked out for her, as they did with each other.

This was even truer of her very best friend. They had been best friends since they were in diapers at the same time and all of their lives since. Of course, he had his guy friends, but there was something different about his friendship with her and she felt the same. There was no one else she was closer to, no one else that knew all her secrets the way he did. It was the same for him; she offered him something he would never find with his buddies. They were very best friends and he always protected her and took care of her, and he tried to never let her fall. If she did fall, he tried very hard to keep her from being hurt too badly.

That is, until the perfect boy kept her from visiting her friends. The perfect boy didn't like her going places without him and so he always found a way to keep her from going to see her friends on her own. He would schedule so many things for them to do together, that she didn't have time to go to the reservation to see her friends. Or, if he wasn't able to be with her, he would have his sister make plans with her so that she still couldn't go see her friends. The perfect boy was very clever and it never _appeared_ as though he was preventing her from seeing her friends. To her, it seemed only that he wanted to spend all his time with her. And she was so enamored of that perfect boy that she wanted to spend all her time with him, too. And with all the time that she was spending with the perfect boy and his perfect family, she just kept feeling more and more like she wasn't good enough for him, for them. She wasn't graceful, or stylish, or beautiful, or well-spoken. She knew that because they were always teasing her about her clumsiness, or trying to take her shopping to buy new clothes, or trying to give her makeovers. She hated shopping, and she hated wearing fancy clothes and she really hated wearing a lot of make-up, but no matter what she said, they would just explain why she was wrong, and she would go along with what they wanted to do because she didn't want to be difficult.

She practically forgot all about her friends on the reservation, but they never forgot her. Her very best friend especially didn't forget her, and he missed her all the time that she wasn't coming around.

In fact, her very best friend missed her more than anything. He missed her so much that he realized he was in love with her, that he had been in love with her for years and suddenly he was terrified that he was going to lose her. The perfect boy was successfully keeping her away and was blinding her from everything in her life but him and his perfect family. The last time their father's had gotten together, she had barely spoken to her very best friend, and had to leave suddenly after she got a phone call from the perfect boy. Once the perfect boy found out her very best friend was in the house with her, he had shown up almost instantly and taken her away. Her very best friend was heartbroken and didn't know what to do.

So, when the perfect boy and his perfect family left suddenly, she was completely traumatized. In the months they had been together, she had been cut off from her friends and her family and she felt as though she was left behind by the only people who cared for her. She felt as though they had left her because she wasn't good enough for them and she was incredibly sad and heartbroken for a long time.

Until one day, she remembered her friends at the reservation, and she remembered her very best friend and wanted to see him. She was afraid he wouldn't want to see her, after all, not only had she completely abandoned him, but she wasn't really worthy of anyone, anyways. She came up with a really good reason to visit her very best friend and thought that if she came bearing gifts (a project, really), that maybe he would be her friend again.

She showed up at her very best friend's house and he was happy to see her, but he could see how sad she was, and that made him sad. They used the project to get to know each other again, and it made both of them happy. He fell more in love with her as the days went by. She began to feel better about herself, and consequently she spent more and more time with her very best friend. She didn't think she would ever get over the pain that the perfect boy had caused, but she was wrong. After a while, she realized that the empty space inside her that used to be full of love for the perfect boy was now full of love for her very best friend. It took her some time to get used to that idea, but the more she thought about it, the more she started noticing things about her very best friend that she hadn't noticed before. Things like, how he always seemed to know when to talk and when to just share space with her or how he always gave her the perfect hug, just exactly when she needed it. And it was so odd, how he always seemed to know just when to tease her and get her to laugh, and then she would forget to be sad.

She also noticed that her very best friend was turning into a very handsome man. As she was becoming a young woman, she couldn't help but notice that when he moved, he had a natural grace about him that implied he was one with nature and the world around him. His muscles moved under his skin in the most delicious way and she caught herself staring at him frequently. She envied that grace, as she was still a clumsy girl. Finally, she realized that all the things she was noticing and thinking and feeling about her very best friend had obliterated the memory of the perfect boy and his abandonment. She suddenly knew what her very best friend had known for ages (and secretly worried she would never figure out) – that they loved each other, as _more_ than very best friends, and that they belonged together.

As she became more aware of her very best friend, she became more aware of a multitude of things about herself, as well. There were so many revelations, in fact, that she had to take a day to process all the information she was only just acknowledging. She noticed things like, she was more confident when she was with him. Confidence which led to her speaking out more often, speaking her mind in a way she hadn't been able to do with the perfect boy. With her very best friend, and her other friends on the res, she was well-spoken.

She found herself doing things that she wouldn't have considered doing before (much less been _allowed_ to do, the perfect boy constantly hovered over her, preventing her from doing anything the slightest bit risky) - - things like cliff diving, riding motorcycles, playing football on the beach, surfing, and even dancing! She was still clumsy, but somehow, when she was with her very best friend, she wasn't _as_ clumsy. In fact, there would sometimes be several days in a row when she didn't fall down at all! And the way he would look at her when they were having these adventures, sometimes took her breath away. He would look at her and he would feel his heart clench with how beautiful she was when she was all lit up from the inside. When he looked at her like that, she felt beautiful.

She had thought she didn't like dancing, but she realized that when she danced with him, her very best friend, she did like it, very much. She liked the way his arms felt around her, and she liked the way he smiled down at her when he would spin them in circles, and she especially liked the way he twirled her away and then back towards him. And he never, ever let her trip or fall, which made her feel graceful, too.

She had been thinking about all this and suddenly, it all fell into place. With the perfect boy and his perfect family, she always felt somehow less than, never good enough, and they encouraged that by the way they treated her and the things they said to her. But her life-long friends (and especially her very _best_ friend) had _never_ made her feel that way. In fact, she had always felt completely comfortable with her friends and never felt that she wasn't completely accepted. On the res, she had only ever felt that who she was, was more than enough. Everything she thought was wrong with herself while she was with the perfect boy and his perfect family, was what made her just right with her very best friend and all her other friends.

When this H-bomb of information exploded into her consciousness, she gasped. Her perspective about absolutely everything changed in that instant. She jumped up, grabbed her purse and keys and drove to the res as fast as her beat-up old pickup truck could get her there.

She drove straight to her very best friend's house, and jumped out of her truck faster even than he could run out of house to greet her. She ran straight towards him and threw herself into his arms. "I'm so sorry it took me so long to figure it out! You are my very best friend and the most amazing person I know! **You** are the perfect boy for me and I promise to show you what you mean to me, every day, for the rest of our lives."

He was a little shocked, to say the least. He had been hoping for ages that she would see what _literally everyone else_ already knew. He was shocked, but he was nobody's fool. He pulled away and looked down at her, grinned and whispered, "Show me now," and then he leaned down to her lips and kissed her.

18 months later

They were finally fully moved into their little house on the res. She was so in love with it, and she couldn't wait to get unpacked and start decorating and making it their home. She loved everything about the house that her very best friend had built for them. She loved that she could see the beach from her kitchen window and she loved that the forest came almost right up to the house in the back. She loved all the windows and skylights that he had put in for her and she loved her kitchen and the 6 burner stove and double ovens he had put in to surprise her. Or maybe that was for him, since she loved to cook, but he really loved to eat what she cooked. Either way, she was thrilled.

She was deliriously happy that they would never have to spend another night apart and that she would always wake up to the happy, sunny, smiling face of her very best friend, who just happened to also be the man she was in love with.

She had just emptied another box, when she heard the music come pouring out of the family room. He had hooked up the sound system, she realized. She heard him over the music asking her to come into the room and tell him where she wanted things hung. Smiling, she walked into the living room when she felt his arms go around her.

She squealed in delight and he spun her around and began dancing her into the room. He grinned as she giggled and he thought to himself that her laugh was in the top 5 list of his favorite sounds. He put his hand up and twirled her away and then back into his arms, and kissed her soundly. She smiled up at him and said, "I love you, Jacob Black. I am the happiest woman on the planet because of you. Thank you for never giving up on me."

He leaned down to touch his forehead to hers and said, "I love you, Bella Black, and I am the happiest man on the planet because you chose me. I would have waited forever for you, but thank you for not making me."

He wiggled his eyebrows at her, dipped her backwards, kissed her again, brought her back up and then danced her into their bedroom. And she didn't trip once.


End file.
